This Friday, I was at the funeral, burial, and an informal gathering of friends for the poet and teacher Margaret Rabb who most of us knew as Peggy. Peggy had a rich life much of which was spent on making other peoples lives richer. I knew her as a poet, but also as someone who worked in international health issues, put together documentary film festivals, was a lawyer (not practicing but much informed by her legal education), a mother, and an all round creative person and teacher who brought out the creativity in others.

Her obituary tells a part of her story, but it doesn’t say how hard she worked to complete her dream as a poet and teacher culminating with her last job as the head of the Creative Writing Program at Wichita State University.

Here is Peggy reading two late poems that capture her love of words, word play and of precise observation: